2002-01-06 - 11:17 p.m.

Sorry faithful readers (if there are any after such a slack period) but I've just been swamped and unprepared to write anything constructive.

In no particular order:

1) I went to Florida for Christmas and once again had a medium-sucky time, thanks mostly to my cousin, his insane wife and their baby. I do not think I will do this ever again. Yes, I know Grandmother is nearly 91, but dammit, Christmas is supposed to be about love and goodwill, family and friendship, not spending your entire holiday (having spent $500 to get there) grinding your teeth and biting your tongue so you don't say something really unkind (but probably true).

It was nice to see my sister and her husband, my dad and my aunt. I spent a lot of time chatting with my brother-in-law about our careers (he's just quit his job too!) and just about life in general. I spent a long evening with my dad & my aunt drinking a bottle of Scapa and discussing the nature of, and our personal experience of the Deity. Grandmother is getting older and sleeps more, and is still having hearing problems even with the new hearing aids, but she's still a dear old lady and I love her to bits. My sister and I, in a continuation of our dramatically improved relations went the entire week with no unpleasantness between us at all, which was terrific. I met up with my friend Elizabeth and we had a great day and evening together. I got to see Tamma on New Year's Day and see her new house, etc. It wasn't all bad, by any means, but wearing.

2) I still have no job, and I'm now looking more in the US than in the UK. This will be devastating for me as I have grown very close to many people here, and I am absolutely not ready to leave. But with no job, I cannot stay (legally or financially) so it is looking more and more like I will have to return home, and soon. Our lease is up in early February, so I may be home as soon as then. I would be very sad to leave here, although there are certainly things (and people!) in the US that I miss a great deal. I'll be back here sometime, but it's just not in the cards right now. So tomorrow we get an estimate on moving our stuff back, I continue to job hunt in DC, Philly and Florida, and we see what happens....

3) Having returned from the stressful US trip on an overnight flight (Jan1-Jan2) I had the most unpleasant flight of my flying career thanks to the worst seatmates in creation. I am still steamed about it. This horrible woman had a squalling (and I mean wailing - this kid had a pair of lungs on him that would do Pavarotti proud!) and yet after the kid had been crying for four straight hours (okay, and a couple of dirty looks from me to her), when I put my seat back reclined so I could *try* to sleep, I get called a bitch. While her sister (?)'s kid is kicking me in the side the whole trip 'cause they put her sideways and she fell asleep that way. At least she slept. We had an altercation as we were disembarking that could have turned violent, given the mood I was in. In part of it, I told them as they were leaving that I hoped they'd had a funeral to go to because there was absolutely no other excuse for bringing such an ill-behaved or ill-prepared child on the flight. It was all very special.

4) After getting home Wednesday, I had one day to recover, unpack (didn't happen), repack, and get ready for Twelfth Night, which was this weekend. It was a great event (held at Caerphilly Castle in Wales), the hall looked great, everyone looked splendid in new outfits, there were excellent musicians playing (Wolgemut, for those who may have heard them at Pennsic), there were glorious deeds of combat and artistry, dancing, merrymaking, several of my friends got splendid awards... And I missed all of it 'cause I was in the kitchen and we had a couple of crises (no dishwashing facilities, the lunch cook just leaving without cleaning up, problems with ingredients arriving on site on time, etc.) I was pretty sure about 1600 that this was going to be my worst feast ever.

Fortunately we got things mostly squared away thanks to a large number of incredibly dedicated volunteers, and the feast came out warm, on time, well-presented, tasty, and well-received by the populace (well, except for the last course where there was a little scheduling "change" no one told us about....) So it worked, but then I ended up spending the rest of the evening cleaning up the kitchen, sorting cooking gear, directing cleanup and the like. Bummer.

Even bigger bummer, as this may have been my last big Drachenwald event, and I have found that Drachenwald, for all its quirks, is dear to me, as are its people.

And then, instead of revelling the night away at the crash space, I found a young lady who had taken ill in the bathroom, and we ended up taking her to the ER at 12:30 or 1:00. Until 5:00. Not enough sleep after getting little the night before and cooking all day, and I missed saying au revoir to many folk whom I may not see again before I leave Drachenwald. Waaah!

But it was the right thing to do, I guess.

5) A friend of mine sent me his novel to read (he's just finished writing it) and I'm having trouble critiquing it well, and that's tied up a lot of my time and brain power over the holidays and stuff.

So I'm fried, tired, sad, uncertain about the future, although glad to be facing a new year. We'll see how it goes.

Happy New Year!

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